New York Times, Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Fun fact: I found out this puzzle was accepted the same week my wife and I found out we were expecting our first baby! For nine months, I wondered which would arrive into the world first. In the end, baby didn't want to be upstaged; Miko was born on 4/7! I've been solving the puzzle aloud with him every night since — gotta start 'em young, y'know?

As for this puzzle — it actually wasn't inspired by a DOG at all, but rather by a Tweet that referred to a certain once-ubiquitous figure in American life as a CARNIVAL BARKER. This immediately set my crossword spidey senses atingling. Such a colorful 15-letter spanner (when pluralized) — I just knew I had to build a puzzle around it.

I was able to think up BEER GROWLER and SUBWOOFER pretty much right away and figured I should develop a full set in no time. Instead, I spent two full days spelunking the depths of canine onomatopoeia thesaurus.com pages. At one point, I remember coming up with a themer idea literally in my sleep, yelling, "I've got it!" and writing it down in my bedside notebook. When I woke up the next morning, I was amused to see that my sleepy self had scribbled down... KING ARF-ER (9). Thanks for that, sleepy Adam. Ultimately though, I hope you all agree that ELITE YELPER is enough of a thing to be crossworthy.

Big thanks to David Kwong for suggesting BOB BARKER instead of CARNIVAL BARKER, allowing for more traditional symmetry rather than the "Dog Paw" layout I had originally (three vertical themers spaced at the top of the grid, and then CARNIVALBARKER horizontal spanning across the bottom), and also for talking me out of cluing the themers as "Brewery watchdog," "Naval watchdog," etc. Sometimes it's best to keep things simple. Thanks as well to Sam Ezersky and the whole editorial team for all the help and for taking my last-minute suggestion for the clue on 3-Down!

There's such a flood of great fill in this debut. Kicking things off with JUICE BAR, continuing along the top with a ZINGER and OH GEEZ — talk about GNARLY! Continuing throughout with AW RATS, HOMBRE, the ROSETTA Stone, EVER SO, ELIXIR. OY VEY, that's fantastic!

I usually take the philosophical approach of adding some color while keeping to a minimum of crossword glue, but there's so much to enjoy in the fill that I didn't mind EGEST (tough vocab), OTRAS (foreign plural), ANIN (partial), etc. If you didn't connect with the theme, there's a ton of bonus material to keep you going.

As a pet lover, I enjoyed the DOG noise words GROWLER, WOOFER, BARKER, and YELPER. It's tough to disguise these, though. I have a growler, but I'd never refer to it as a BEER GROWLER. (My neighbor is currently using it for Kombucha, that foul brew.) I've heard enough WOOFER wordplay that this entry confirmed my suspicions, and "Name That Theme" was over all too quickly.

ELITE YELPER … I read up on this but couldn't find the exact term in their FAQ page. There are some not-exact references to it, though. Sorry Adam, not entirely buying it.

Fun concept, but one that didn't generate a strong a-ha because of how hard it is to disguise the critical words. Such a blast of fill sizzle, though — looking forward to Adam's future grids!

ELOPE and its plural variant we see today have seen a number of outstanding clues over the years:

• Go off, but not without a hitch
• Give a ring while on the road
• Marry a cutie on the q. t.
• Expedite some union business
• Not do the rite thing
• Take the honey and run
• Split with one's beloved

And my personal favorite:

• Opt for the window instead of the aisle